Pages

January 23, 2017

JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure: All Star Blogging (Part 6)

You know what really gets to me? Jotaro’s hat.

I don’t have a problem with the way it looks. It’s just that for the longest time -- before
I seriously started getting into JoJo’s
Bizarre Adventure -- I was under the impression that he never took it
off. Plus there’s his look in the Stardust Crusaders anime; with his black
uniform and black hair, it looks as if his hat is essentially a part of his
skull. Where does one end and the other
begin? Nobody knows. Granted that ambiguity was drastically
reduced in the Diamond is Unbreakable anime
by virtue of Jotaro’s white outfit, but still.
The point remains, I think.

…Is what I would like to say. But in the
very first episode of the anime, Jotaro’s hat gets blown clear off. And then in the very first arc of the second half of the story, it gets blown off
again. It’s like, how can anyone say
that the hat never comes off when it comes off almost immediately? And on more than one occasion? The mind boggles. I blame memes, I suppose; it’s another
instance of JoJo being pared down to
absolute basics. A generalization. And when you generalize, you’re that much
more likely to get it wrong.

So I guess I’ll get into specifics -- and use most
of the rest of this post to explain why I think Stardust Crusaders is the weakest of the JoJo parts so far. Hold on
to your butts hats.

Their SPOILERS have begun!
Their SPOILERS are running out!

They will SPOIL this!
They won’t stop!

SPOILERS! (HA!
HA! HA! HA!)

Part 6: Stardust
Crusaders (again)

(Or: In
Which Roads are Rolled -- B Side)

(That’s a strong-ass opening…but still not better than the first one.)

Let’s not get too hasty, though. I’m not even going to begin to suggest that Part 3 is bad. As far as I’m convinced, it’s not. The
entire last post should’ve gone a long way toward proving why it isn’t. Is Part 3 my favorite part? No.
It’s behind Part 2, which in turn is (however slightly) behind Part
1. But even if it’s a step down from
that high plateau, it’s still sitting pretty above ground level. Far be it from me to take that away from the
series -- most of all because I want to avoid the “it’s popular, so it’s bad”
mentality.

By the same token, I can’t help but raise
complaints whenever they crop up (because I’m me, and it’s kind of my
thing). Pound for pound, Part 3 has more
issues than its predecessors -- at least for me. Others might feel the same way, though,
precisely because this is likely the
part with the most exposure. This is
likely what people think of when they think of “JoJo”, so it’s only natural to want to give it a closer look. So with all that in mind, what exactly is
wrong with Stardust Crusaders?

The answer: this guy.

This guy.
This is it. This is the one. This is the problem with Stardust Crusaders, bar none.

I’ve
already talked aboutJotaro
and the other Crusaders before, and I’ll repeat what I sad (and believed)
back then: no, I don’t think Jotaro is as bad as it gets. No, I don’t think he’s completely devoid of
personality. And so on, and so
forth. I know how bad characters can be,
so the Part 3 lead is nowhere near the bottom of the barrel. With all of that in mind, I have a hard time
looking at the installment and saying “Nope, no problems here. Carry on.”
And yeah, a lot of my gripes stem from our hero.

Here’s the thing.
I can count on/look to anime to feature men and women to bear every last
shred of their passion -- usually by screaming with enough force to vaporize
their necks. That’s something that
personally appeals to me; others may feel differently, but I’d bet that some
people watch anime specifically to get a taste of the hype they provide. JoJo is
no exception across its myriad forms (including this one, to be sure), but
there’s a difference here that’s worth highlighting.

In Phantom
Blood, you could always count on Jonathan to react (or overreact) to any
situation beyond “dote on his main squeeze”.
Even if he was a good guy and gentleman by nature, he made his passion
incredibly obvious -- whether it was to punch out zombie knights or to decry
anyone who gave his dog a Tiger Knee.
Then you move on to Battle
Tendency, and you get Joseph -- a guy who lets his energy, will, and inner
fire spew out of every orifice. Are
their personalities and reactions realistic?
Not always, or even often. But
look at the story they’re from, and look at the medium they’re from. They have every excuse to go all guns
blazing, because it’s what we expect.
It’s what we never knew we wanted, but can love when it does come our
way.

Then you get to Stardust Crusaders, and Jotaro’s response to all sorts of scenes --
tense, action-packed, silly, and beyond -- is a resounding “_______________________”.

He still gets his moments (like telling Joseph off
for crashing virtually every plane he’s ever flown), but the ratio of moments
to nothingness is pretty far-flung in
the latter’s favor. He doesn’t even
speak in a lot of instances, so it leads to weird cases where it’s as if the
main character is actually just a background character. If I remember right, he’s even shifted into the background at times. It’s not exactly a death knell for Part 3,
but it leads to a really unfortunate situation where the guy almost
specifically brought in to beat the enemy Stand users/DIO is less of a
character and more of an attack dog. Or,
in meta terms, he’s only there to fix problems that good writing the
others can’t.

I was under the impression, prior to watching this
Part, that Jotaro was the leader. He’s
not; it’s Joseph. And in turn, the true
MVP this time around -- if not the actual hero of the story -- is Polnareff.

Like I said before, Polnareff gets an INSANE
amount of play here. I don’t know the
stats intimately, but I’d wager that the French avenger takes down almost as
many Stand users as Jotaro. He certainly
clashes with more -- Devil, Death 13, Judgment, Anubis, and Sethan, to name a
few -- and more importantly, Polnareff’s struggles against the enemies feels
more genuine. He’s more than capable of
outperforming the baddies with skill or power, as you’d expect, but he’s put
into much direr situations. He’s allowed
to be closer to the brink of defeat (more often than Jotaro, at least), and
allowed to be thrown off his game, and allowed to be humiliated, and allowed to
be afraid. Polnareff’s wider range of
emotions -- and the gusto behind them -- makes him more exciting to watch,
compared to Jotaro’s muted nature and limited range (stoicism and anger…the
classics, without a doubt).

It leads me to believe that, whether people are
aware of it or not, JoJo is at its
best when it’s allowed to go full tilt.
Jonathan and Joseph went a long way towards bringing out the passion in
their stories and their audiences; Jotaro doesn’t put up nearly as strong an
effort, but Polnareff picks up the slack.
It leads me to believe that in pumping out the chapters for Stardust Crusaders way back in the day,
Araki did a course correction to shift the spotlight away from Jotaro and onto
Polnareff. It was either that, or
pressure/suggestions from editors or fans.
I don’t have any proof of that, but, well, that’s what I’d do.

Well, either that, or actively put in work to
develop or fix characters that aren’t working.
But I digress.

Obviously, this is the part that introduced the
world -- in-universe and out of it -- to Stands. The best way to enforce their presence was to
feature as many as possible -- and obviously, the way to accomplish that was to have the heroes go up
against the villains and their myriad powers.
Given that JoJo’s still going
to this day, I think it’s safe to say that it’s an approach that works. Some have decried Part 3 for devolving into a
“Stand user of the week” format, but it doesn’t get to me that much. As a Kamen
Rider fan, it’d be pretty hypocritical of me to call out one show while
slobbering over another. Still, I get
why people might take shots at this outing.

The full title is JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure,
after all, so people are going in expecting to see a band of good guys going on
an adventure. Pretty straightforward
stuff; Part 2 had Joseph more or less travelling the world after any given
story beat. Obviously there’s still an
adventure to be had in Part 3, since Jotaro and crew have to go from Japan to
Egypt (and hit every possible speed bump along the way), but there’s a
difference. Virtually every foe in the
first two Parts, give or take a few, had a purpose in the grand scheme of
things. In Part 3, a decent-sized chunk
of them don’t feel very special -- which makes it a hell of a lot harder to
swallow the more regimented format.

It almost feels like they’re playing a Mega Man game, albeit with 75% of the
budget blown on making sprites bend into borderline-impossible poses. Here is an enemy. The enemy has this skill. Learn how to beat the enemy. Beat the enemy. Move on to the next enemy. Repeat as needed. JoJo is
built in such a way that the repetition is easier to stand -- thanks to how
engaging its “boss battles” are -- but it couldn’t avoid all of the trappings of said repetition. The bad guys lose their uniqueness and
potency when you think of them as mere dominoes to knock down on the way to the
end goal. And yeah, that’s basically
what happened with me.

My biggest gripe with this installment I that a
lot of the arcs/engagements end in the same way: even if the enemy Stand user
shows up and acts like a smug little shit, it’s only a matter of time before
they’re reduced to crying, sniveling cowards on all fours or begging for
mercy. It happens with Rubber Soul. It happens with Steely Dan. It happens with ZZ. It happens again, and again, and again. It gives the good guys (Jotaro especially) a
chance to look like a bunch of slick badasses -- and provide some catharsis for
the audience -- but there’s a limit to how many times you can use the same
trick. JoJo wasn’t aware of that limit, so you get a situation where the
much-hyped nine Egyptian God Stand users are just as likely to break down. It really takes away the menacing nature of
guys like Alessi and D’arby the Gamer when you’re just waiting for them to get down on their knees.

True, not every Stand battle ends in the same
way. And sure, there are some real
golden apples in the basket; the fights with Hanged Man, Judgment, Geb, Bast,
and Cream are some of my favorites.
(Although incidentally, only one of those has Jotaro playing a
role. Make of that what you will.) But it happens enough times for it to be an
issue for me. More pressingly, there’s
the fact that there ARE so many Stand battles, and against characters who
aren’t going to matter mere minutes after their defeat. Oh no, Forever is a super-smart orangutan
whose Stand is an entire cruise ship!
Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaand he’s gone.
Oh no, Oingo can slip into your group by changing his appearance, and
he’s planning to blow up any threats to DIO!
Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaand he’s over.

I don’t know how you’d resolve that issue, because
in some ways there might not be an easy fix.
The chapters had to keep coming to the pages of Jump, after all, and the fans had to be sated. Honestly, it may just be a losing scenario,
one where the special stuff gets diluted by the “business as usual”
formatting. And it’s diluted even
further for the obvious reason: length. Part 1 told the story it needed to (edits and
omissions aside) in nine episodes. Part
2 did the same in 17, even with (or despite) its grander scope. Part 3 took 48 episodes, and couldn’t even be arsed to say the names of some of
its baddies. Because that’s how you know
you’re a valued member of the story: an utter rejection of your identity.

Speaking of identity: does anybody know what the
point of Anne was? I thought Araki was
playing the long game with her, but then she just gets on a plane and never
appears again. Was she important? Was she?
Okay, I’m gonna go ahead and say “nope”.

This may be the Part that introduced Stands, but
it’s also firmly cemented the bullshit that’s basically the lifeblood of JoJo.
It’s always been there, ostensibly, what with Joseph’s antics back in
the 30s. But the nature of Stand battles
means that sometimes, the only way for things to happen as intended -- and draw
the most shock value -- is to bend the rules as far as they’ll go. JoJo manages
to stay under the line where “suspension of disbelief” is still possible, but
I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t caressed like an impassioned lover who’s had
one drink too many.

I mean, the
entire arc is predicated on bullshit.
Part 1 ended with Erina using Dio Brando’s specially-prepared coffin to
escape an exploding ship on the high seas, with Dio’s head left wrapped tight
in the arms of his adoptive brother.
Part 3, meanwhile, starts with DIO -- head, body, and all -- making it
back to solid ground because he got
in the coffin instead. That’s a
continuity error that’s pretty friggin’ hard to overlook. But I guess I have to, because pretty much
the entirety of the Jotaro vs DIO fight is predicated on bullshit -- like Star
Platinum and The World apparently being the same type of Stand, Jotaro moving
in the frozen time, Jotaro stopping time,
and Jotaro
learning to fly for no raisin.

There is more that I could go off on, but there
are more important things to talk about.
Like this obscure and not-too-popular character.

I’ll be upfront: I like Part 1’s Dio more than
Part 3’s DIO. Dio is more active, more
direct in his procedures, more explicit in his relation to the hero, and, well,
he’s just more interesting. In the same
sense that Polnareff gets to show off various sides of himself, so too does Dio
-- his anger, his joy, his envy, his frustration, his sorrow, his confusion, his
desperation, and more. I mean, how many
baddies do you know that manage to stay credible, terrifying threats after they
get beaten up so badly by 12-year-olds that they burst into tears? Not a lot, I’m guessing; Dio manages to pull
it off, so that he’s a hammy tyrant as well as a striking villain.

I heard before going into Part 3 that DIO is lamer
than his earlier incarnation, mostly for the reasons I just named. I’m inclined to agree, BUT it’s not a
complete wash. Nothing in Part 3
is. DIO is more or less a different
character than Dio (partly because of the body he’s hijacked), with elements
that make him praiseworthy in all sorts of ways. He may spend 90% of the story sitting around
in his mansion, but he’s interesting regardless. Why?
Because even if he’s more static in his procedures, he still plays to
the thematic heft of Stardust Crusaders
-- and the ongoing idea that fear is a key part of the human experience.

Or, to simplify: DIO’s too scurred to face the
good guys.

Joseph isn’t the only one who’s changed with
age. Back in the day, Dio was (or
became) a megalomaniac with ambitions to rule over everything, a willingness to
discard his humanity, and a penchant for chewing on the scenery like it’s an
all-you-can-eat buffet. DIO is…well, he’s
still that, which he proves handily
once every single one of his cronies is forced to “retire”. But think about it for a second: why would an
immortal, ultra-strong vampire need cronies in the first place? Sure, he needs subordinates to do his dirty
work during the day, and it’d be a hell of a hassle for him to leave Egypt and
go on a journey of his own to personally kill the Joestar crew. And as a VIP, he shouldn’t have to dirty his
hands when the help can do it for him.

But it goes further than that. Even if DIO is a lot of things, “a fool”
isn’t one of them. He won’t rush in and
risk death by facing off against his mortal enemies, because he knows that A)
they’re likely the only ones in the world that can beat him, and B) he already
lost to a Joestar once. He has to play
things smart. Cool. He shouldn’t have to exert himself when his
charisma and promises (most of which, money aside, are likely empty) are enough
to bring Stand users under his wing.
“Let them go on a manhunt
that’ll take them into deserts, ghost towns, and general hellholes! I’m
staying here and reading books in the dark!”

Really though, DIO doesn’t have to do his hammy
song and dance. And outside of the last
four-ish episodes, it seems like he doesn’t want to. He’s soft-spoken, contemplative, and open
minded; he wonders about more than just whose blood he’s going to suck, or how
he’ll deal with those meddling Joestars, or which concubines he plans to have
wrapped around his waist like a tutu. I
guess wondering about the nature of man has become his favorite pastime and
comfort, since that’s all he could do in his Retcon Coffin. Regardless, for almost the entirety of Stardust Crusaders he’s calm and
collected -- which might be a reflection of his newfound confidence, or a façade to make sure his image
doesn’t crack in the face of his peons.

It’s an interesting turn. DIO has every advantage in the world,
including…well, The World. That’s the ultimate Stand for inspiring fear;
before it’s fully revealed, it leaves guys like Hol Horse and Polnareff shaken
to their cores because they’re incapable of processing what just happened. It’s hard to blame them; The World crosses
over into some quantum physics territory, and the latter of the two wanted to
use a genie’s wish to make his own amusement park. The powers of The World are just a smidge beyond the average man.

At a base level, DIO has no need to fear --
especially because so many aspects about him inspire fear. Even if you’re the strongest (like Jotaro) or
the cleverest (like Joseph), it doesn’t matter when you’re left immobilized;
it’s even worse when you can’t even perceive that you’ve been immobilized. It’s like an RPG with a game-breaking glitch:
whatever battle-winning turn you’re about to take will never come, because it’s
been stolen and you’re already dead because there’s a knife in your throat.

But DIO lives in fear regardless. You could argue that he’s always lived his
life in fear -- afraid of death, afraid of failure, afraid of humiliation,
afraid of living in squalor, afraid of unfulfilled ambitions, afraid of being
powerless, and probably a dozen more.
Becoming a vampire was supposed to help him overcome all that, but
paradoxically he’s been linked to the fears and the consequences of them. He can’t even go out in the daytime…which in
hindsight seems like a horrible quality for the would-be ruler of the world to
have, but whatever. It’s only natural
for him. He could’ve done so much to
live a peaceful, successful life (before and after his “rebirth”), but he
strove for more without being able to handle the consequences.

Despite his bluster and abilities, DIO is a man
who lives in fear. Jotaro isn’t. Like I’ve said in earlier posts, Jotaro’s
ability to rise above fear -- to stay calm, focused, and always ready to beat
an enemy’s ass -- is what makes him the perfect counter to DIO and his gaggle
of Stand users. The vampire overlord may
hope to wear down the Crusaders over the course of their 50-day journey
psychologically (if he can’t outright have them killed), but in the end
Jotaro’s courage manages to break through DIO’s fear -- and ultimately, DIO
himself.

Jotaro’s perma-chill state may be tough to bear at
times. But like most of Stardust Crusaders’ content, it’s 100%
intentional.

I can’t bring myself to hate this Part. Why would I?
I’m not even close to that threshold.
I enjoyed it, was surprised by it, and felt like I walked away with
something gained. I don’t feel like my
time investment has been wasted with this, the longest installment of the anime
so far. Are there things I’d like to
have been improved? Yes. Are there too many Stand users weighing down
what could’ve been a tighter, leaner production? Arguably.
But you should be able to judge a story by what it is, not what it isn’t
-- and you know what this story is? Good.

I’m assuming that this is one of the most popular
installments in the whole franchise. If
that’s true (and I suspect it is, especially in the west), then I can rest easy
knowing that curious onlookers have something whose popularity is, for the most
part, entirely justified. It’s not just
about dumb memes or recognizing something that’s only been heard about; it’s
about the fact that once again, JoJo’s
Bizarre Adventure proves that it’s got more going on than what’s on the
surface.

So, if I had to rank what I’ve seen so far, it’d
go something like this: 4 > 1 > 2 > 3.
Granted the gaps between one Part and another may vary, but I want to
stress that just because Part 3’s at the bottom doesn’t mean that
it’s…wait. Hold on a second. Isn’t there something strange about that
ranking? Why is there a 4 at the
beginning?